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Pizza Hut is an American restaurant chain and international franchise, known for pizza and side dishes, it is now corporately known as Pizza Hut, Inc. and is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., the world's largest restaurant company.[2]

In 2012, the company had more than 6,000 Pizza Hut restaurants in the United States, and had more than 5,139 store locations in 94 other countries and territories around the world.[3]

Pizza Hut is split into several different restaurant formats; the original family-style dine-in locations; store front delivery and carry-out locations; and hybrid locations that offer carry-out, delivery, and dine-in options. Many full-size Pizza Hut locations offer lunch buffet, with "all-you-can-eat" pizza, salad, bread sticks, and a special pasta. Additionally, Pizza Hut also has a number of other business concepts that are different from the store type; Pizza Hut "Bistro" locations are "Red Roofs" which offer an expanded menu and slightly more upscale options.

A new, upscale concept was unveiled in 2004, called "Pizza Hut Italian Bistro". Unveiled at fifty locations nationwide, the Bistro is similar to a traditional Pizza Hut, except that new, Italian themed dishes are offered, such as penne pasta, chicken pomodoro, toasted sandwiches and other foods.[4] Instead of black, white, and red, Bistro locations feature a burgundy and tan motif.[5] Pizza Hut Bistros still serve the chain's traditional pizzas and sides as well. In some cases, Pizza Hut has replaced a "Red Roof" location with the new concept. "Pizza Hut Express" and "The Hut" locations are fast food restaurants. They offer a limited menu with many products not found at traditional Pizza Huts. These type of stores are often paired in a colocated location with a sibling brand such as WingStreet, KFC or Taco Bell, and are also found on college campuses, food courts, theme parks, bowling alleys, and in stores such as Target.

Vintage "Red Roof" locations, designed by architect Richard D. Burke, can be found throughout the United States and Canada; several exist in the UK,[citation needed] Australia, and México. In his book Orange Roofs, Golden Arches, Phillip Langdon wrote that the Pizza Hut "Red Roof" architecture "is something of a strange object – considered outside the realm of significant architecture, yet swiftly reflecting shifts in popular taste and unquestionably making an impact on daily life. These buildings rarely show up in architectural journals, yet they have become some of the most numerous and conspicuous in the United States today."[6]

Curbed.com reports, "Despite Pizza Hut's decision to discontinue the form when they made the shift toward delivery, there were still 6,304 'traditional units' standing as of 2004, each with the shingled roofs and trapezoidal windows signifying equal parts suburban comfort and strip-mall anomie." This building style was common in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The name "Red Roof" is somewhat anachronistic now, since many locations have brown roofs. Dozens of "Red Roofs" have closed or been relocated or rebuilt.[7]

Many "Red Roof" branches have beer if not a full bar, music from a jukebox, and sometimes an arcade. In the mid 1980s, the company moved into other successful formats including delivery or carryout and the fast food "Express" model.

Pizza Hut was founded in 1958 by two Wichita State University students, Frank and Dan Carney, as a single location in Wichita, Kansas.[8] The oldest continuously operating Pizza Hut in the world is in Manhattan, Kansas, in a shopping and tavern district known as Aggieville near Kansas State University. The first Pizza Hut restaurant east of the Mississippi was opened in Athens, Ohio in 1966 by Lawrence Berberick and Gary Meyers.

Pizza Hut was one of the first American franchises to open in Iraq.[14]

The company recently announced a rebrand in November 2014 to begin on November 19, 2014. The rebrand is the result of an effort to increase sales, which have dropped in the last two years. The menu will also be expanded to introduce various items such as crust flavors and eleven new specialty pies. Work uniforms for employees will also be refreshed.[15]

Pizza Hut experiments with new products frequently, discontinuing less successful ones. In North America, Pizza Hut has notably sold these: "Stuffed crust" pizza, with the outermost edge wrapped around a cylinder of mozzarella cheese; "Hand-Tossed", more like traditional pizzeria crusts; Thin 'N Crispy, a thin, crisp dough which was Pizza Hut's original style; Dippin' Strips pizza, a pizza cut into small strips that can be dipped into a number of sauces; and its largest product, the Bigfoot pizza.

The Stuffed Crust pizza was introduced in March 26, 1995. By the end of the year it had become one of their most popular lines.[16]

There are regional differences in the products and bases sold.[17] The company has localized to Southeast Asia with a baked rice dish called Curry Zazzle.[18][19]

On May 9, 2008, Pizza Hut created and sold in Seattle, Denver, and Dallas, "The Natural", featuring organic ingredients. This was discontinued on October 27, 2009 in the Dallas market.[20]

Pizza Hut developed a pizza for use as space food, which was delivered to the International Space Station in 2001.[21] It was vacuum sealed and about 6 inches (15 cm) in diameter to fit in the Station's oven.[21] It was launched on a Soyuz and successfully eaten by Yuri Usachov in orbit.[22]

In recent years the chain has seen a down turn in profits. It was released in 2015 that the franchise would be pumping more capital into their London branches. High Street chain Pizza Hut is installing cocktail bars in its London branches as part of a £60 million bid to win back “the Nando’s generation”.[23]

Logo from 1967 to 1999 (still in use at some older locations), inspired by the Red Roof building

Pizza Hut's very first ad in 1965 was "Putt Putt to the Pizza Hut". It shows a man in a suit and tie apparently ordering take-out and driving his 1965 Mustang JR to Pizza Hut while being chased by townspeople. He picks up his pizza and goes back to his house, when all of the townspeople who were chasing him start eating all the pizza except the man who ordered it. Frustrated, he calls Pizza Hut again.

Until early 2007, Pizza Hut's main advertising slogan was "Gather 'round the good stuff", and was "Now You're Eating!" from 2008 to 2009. From 2009 to 2012, the advertising slogan was "Your Favorites. Your Pizza Hut." The advertising slogan is currently "Make it great," an updated version of the original "Makin' it great" slogan that was used from 1987 to 1993.

Pizza Hut has been a sponsor of the "Book It!" reading incentive program for children since the program's launch in 1984.[25] Students who read books according to the goal set by the classroom teacher, in any given month from October through March, are rewarded with a Pizza Hut certificate good for one free, one-topping Personal Pan Pizza. Some psychologists have criticized the program on the grounds that it may lead to overjustification and reduce children's intrinsic interest in reading.[26] However, a study of the program found that participation in the program neither increased nor decreased reading motivation.[26] The program's 25th anniversary was in 2009. The Book It! program in Australia ceased in 2002 when Pizza Hut in Australia was removing its dine-in stores as Australians opted for take away pizza instead of dine-in.[citation needed]

In the UK, Pizza Hut was criticized in 2007 for the high salt content of its meals, some of which were found to contain more than twice the daily recommended amount of salt for an adult. The meats that consumers demand for pizza toppings (ham, sausage, bacon, etc.) are, likewise, salty and fatty meats.[27]

To meet the Food Standards Agency 2010 target for salt levels in foods, between 2008 and 2010 the company removed over 15% of salt across its menu.[28]

In 2010, Pizza Hut was criticized when its supplier of palm oil, Sinar Mas, was exposed to be illegally slashing and burning the Paradise Forests of Indonesia to plant palm oil plantations.[29]

Pizza Hut's role in providing food-based rewards for the children's reading program Book It!, has been criticized by some psychologists on the grounds that it may lead to overjustification and reduce children's intrinsic interest in reading.[26] Book It! was also criticised by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) in 2007 who described it as "one of corporate America's most insidious school-based brand promotions." A pamphlet produced by the group argued that the program promoted junk food to a captive market, made teachers into promoters for Pizza Hut and undermined parents by making visits to the chain an integral part of bringing up their children to be literate.[30]